Finding Ourselves
by LyricalMadness25
Summary: Sonic and the crew discovers things about themselves in thier most life changing adventure. Love, Friends,Self-Purpose, and Understanding. SonicxShadow, KnucklesxRouge, TailsxComos, Amyx?, OCx? P.S. I dont know how often i will be able to update. Hope you enjoy the story!
1. Introduction: A Hero of His Own

Introduction: A Hero Of His Own

"Sonic!" Amy called out as her blue hero was struck against the wall, almost lifeless. Unable to help she ran to Sonic with tears streaming out of her lime green eyes as she tried to shake her beloved hero awake, but to avail, he lay still own the cold hard floor. Amy put her head to his chest, barely breathing. She called a name unfamiliar to the world of canon facts. Cobalt Blue, Blood Red, and Ebony Black streaked hair flashed in front of her eyes. The newest addition to the team knelt over the fallen hero, they rubbed her hands together. First it glowed a soft orange, then a deep red, a bright blue, lastly white sparking electricity surrounding their white cotton gloves. Slowly, they lowered their hands to his chest and pressed. One time, two times, three times, their head went to his chest his heart was beating slowly but was picking up pace. They stood and smiled.

"Will he be okay?" Amy asked.

"Totally Rosy," They dashed off to finish what will hopefully be their last battle, at least, for the next couple months.

"I told you…" her teammate she was speaking to was no longer there. "Not to call me that." She said under her breath, thinking to her moebius counterpart Rosy the Rascal. Her attention was back on the hero on the floor, stone still.


	2. Chapter One: A Day Of His Own

**Chapter One: A Day Of His Own**

Blue cobalt fur shining from the sun rays streaking through the sheer curtains illuminating him with a golden glow. Emerald green eyes opened reluctantly,but suddenly sprung open with the realization of the day. His day off, something he doesn't do often but does fully cherish.

 _"A day that will not be wasted,"_ he thought to himself.

Sonic pulled on his socks and gloves, and slipped on his now iconic shoes. He grabbed his wallet and dashed out the door. The force of the wind pulling the door shut.

Faces blurred by the street, he heard people calling his name, but that's far from unusual. He flashed a smile in their direction and stopped every so often, for a picture, autograph, or just a hug if they wanted. Soon after a couple more streets, a few more names, and a lot of faces later he stopped at the only place he thought acquittable for breakfast.

"Dave's homemade chili dogs!" he smiled to himself.

 _"To think that Dave is a teenager just a bit older than myself made himself famous by cooking chili dogs. Makes me think what would i be doing if i wasn't a "hero."_

He walked inside, Sonic was the only reason why they would even open doors this early. Sonic usually paid them double as a sign of gratitude.

"Ah, the hero of Mobius, here for his morning chili dogs." said dave, the blue pigmented squirrel a couple years older than the hedgehog himself."

"Hey Dave. Um… you know you can call me Sonic right? Everyone else does and you're older than me so…"

Dave shrugged his shoulders ushering that Sonic should continue his order.

"I guess I'll have two chili dogs with tomato, green onions, onions, and extra cheese and beans."

"So you're usual order."

"Yeah…"

"No drink?"

"I guess water…"

"OK…. What about fries?"

"Nah, I'm fine today."

With the order completed Dave punched the numbers into the register. The number flashed bright red against the dark LCD screen.

"That will be 13 rings please."

Sonic gave him 26 ring and sat in booth in the corner of the restaurant. He focused on the world outside of the building.

Sonic P. O. V.

 _I haven't really gave myself many days off haven't I? It seems that Egghead knows exactly when I schedule them. I just want them to rest, Egghead been making me work them like crazy. This is the third time I try to do a day off in the last couple months. The team deserves, I deserve it, hell, at this rate Egghead does too._

I didn't realize it but my eyes focused on the town people, walking back and forth. Husband with wives, mother and fathers with children, girlfriends and boyfriends holding hands, friends with friends. I scowled, now thinking of the people of Mobius in relation to Egghead.

 _What did the people of Mobius do to deserve the pain and torment rained down by fricking Egghead anyway?... Nothing... exactly nothing. Unneeded deaths and destruction for no reason at all. Just an old man's dream proving to himself that he can be something. Possibly making up for what he never had. All hail King Ivo "Douche Bag" Robotnik._

I was shocked out of my thoughts when Dave sat my order on the table.

"Thanks Dave," he nodded and went off. I stared at the fresh steam heating up face, almost drifting back into my thoughts. My stomach had put a stop to that. I lifted a chili dog to my mouth millimeters away. A scream ripped through the air in the distance, and as quick as it was heard my watch flashed.

*Badniks* *Park* *Come ASAP*

I rose from the seat.

 _Maybe later I thought._

"Hey Dave, could you save these for me?" I yelled out the door and started running wind slicing through my quills.


	3. Chapter Two: Mystery Stranger

(A/N: Today is my day of birth otherwise know as a birthday. Wasn't sure how much time I had so I really wanted to get a chapter out today. Also my OC and I have the same birthday. (June 25) Hope you enjoy reading!)

 **Chapter Two: Mystery Stranger**

Sonic raced to the park as fast as he possibly could to meet explosions of metal and wires. Sonic immediately jumped into battle, he seen an old enemy...and also badniks. Shadow in the middle of it all doing what he can. He thought about saying something to the ebony hedgehog, but Sonic knew better. Also Shadow probably silently acknowledged him already. So Sonic kept pushing into the cluster until he was in the middle like his "teammate". It seem like though that the badniks kept showing up. As if every one he destroyed three more showed up to replace it. He looked over at Shadow who was intently focused on the job in front of him. Then Shadow glanced over his shoulder and locked eyes with Sonic for only a second. Sonic gotten a nodded, probably the nicest thing Shadow ever said to him.

 _I think I may wearing him down,_ he thought. _Or maybe I found the secret to his friendship, not having one._

A badnik tripped Shadow while he was kicking another one. Sonic tried to over a help but on was latched onto his arm eventually blocking his eyesight. Then another pulled his leg slowly pulling him down to the grass.

"Hey! He yelled get off me!" He tried shaking them off the large metal cluster sitting on top of his chest nearly about to suffocate. The weight was lifted from him all at once with smack of a hammer. A pink hedgehog was standing above him with a hand out to help him up, which he took.

"So glad you guys showed up, we needed it." Sonic said fully on legs again.

"No...problem,"Amy said in between smashes. Then she went on her way to draw badniks into her own circle, crushing them to bits as she goes on her way. Slightly farther away he spotted an old friend red echidna, impaling badniks through his spiked hands, one after another going down in flames. Sonic powered kicked a few more badniks sending them flying into a bigger cluster.

"Sonic!" somebody yelled but he couldn't see where it was coming from. the sound of explosions and crunching metal covered the identity of the voice.

"SONIC!" They yelled again. "HELP ME!" The voice was Tails.

"Tails!" Sonic eyes grew wide at the sound of his younger friend… his younger brother. He was wrapped in the wires of a badnik, which was dragging Tails to a place of unknown destination with a horde forming around him. Sonic struggled to push out the center trying desperately to save Tails. He kicked and punched any robots in his range, he's either going to get out or die trying. After what seemed like forever he couldn't leave, stuck.

"Rouge!" Sonic yelled. "Can you get to Tails? He's captured and i can't get to him."

She looked over where sonic gazed went to she flew up and felt tugging on her heart towed boot.

"Hey! Get off!" She kicked and flailed her leg, trying to pry the badniks off. Only to discover they grabbed her other foot pulling her down slowly. Panic started to descend on her face.

"Sorry Sugar, I can't! They won't let go!" Rouge called back. Sonic frantically looked around to see his other friends are in peril. Knuckles' arm is pinned to the ground, keeping him from fighting. Amy was separated from her hammer, being lifted in the air by the aerial badniks. Even Shadow was being overtaken, like the rest of his friends, he's exhausted from fighting. For Sonic this is one of few times he can not find a way to get out this. He couldn't even think of a half-assed plan to believe in. He didn't have the strength to fight all of them off.

Sonic P. O. V.

I honestly thought that we were doomed. I couldn't think of anything to save us. We've been fighting for about an hour and a half, i was exhausted and in panic.

 **BOOM!**

There was an explosion, thinking it was Tails my head snapped immediately in that direction. He was safe still looking for the source of the explosion also. It's confused the rest of my teammates and even the badniks. We were combing the skies.

 **BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!**

The next couple explosions sent chunks of metal and wires flying everywhere. The number of badniks suddenly started depleting as if they weren't there in the first place. It was enough to where we could beat them. One by one each of us started struggling out of position. I also caught a glimpse of our mystery bomber…well sorta of.

Whoever they were had an oversized dark gray hoodie, too big to even make out a gender. The hoodie goes all the way to their knees. Only thing you could see are the bottom of black capri's and turquoise and black high tops. The person was riding on a black hoverboard, with silver skull engravings, every once in awhile they would drop a bomb like object. I shoved off the badniks that had a grip on me. It took maybe another ten to fifteen minutes to fight off what was left. I looked in Tails' who was safe and okay.

Everyone started walking back towards me, taking out whatever small fires they could. That's when I noticed a burning can next to me i picked it up blew out the scrap metal. Tails came up to me and gave me a small hug.

"Tails! You ok buddy?"

"I'm fine… thanks to whoever that was."

We glanced up at the sky. It was obvious that whoever that person was is long gone.

"I don't know," I said. "But next time a thank you is obviously in order."

Tails pick up the smoking can I blew out. He dumped it over dust as well as liquid from another can fell out.

"Interesting. Thermite, a magnesium strip, and…" he sniffed the can. "Gas? This obviously means this a thermite bomb. Whoever did this has at the least a basic chemistry skills."

Then Tails looked at me.

"What are we… "

"Going to do? No clue, we will discuss it at the team sonic meeting next week. For now i want you guys to enjoy the next couple days. I don't think Eggman will pull anything soon. They all agreed and disbanded going back to their activities. Except for Sonic, after he went back to reclaim his chili dogs he went home back to his room. Where he fell asleep due to exhaustion.


	4. Chapter Three: Hi, My Name Is

**Chapter Three: Hi, My Name Is...**

A week from the attack at the the park there weren't any other interruptions. They met at a table in another park, not too far from Knuckles' place. When everyone showed up the usual topic of Eggman was being discussed.

"Eggman has never sent this many robots before," started Sonic.

"How of is he going to go this time?" Amy asked.

"I don't know, maybe he's trying to rule the planet again?" Knuckles imputed thinking to one of many time Plan Eggmanland was in motion.

Tails questioned, "Or could it possibly lead back to the mystery stranger?"

"I think it's a coincidence." Rouge imputed.

"Okay. Let's say that this is a direct correlation between Eggman and the stranger. What would that do for us?" Sonic asked.

"What if their a person that wants to be helpful in our time of need?" said Knuckles.

"Or what if they are using him to get to us?"

"Like literally every other villain?" Amy said.

Shadow who have been listing intently this whole time spoke up.

"And… what if they correlated at all. Just to play on both possibilities."

"I don't know. Maybe they're just a new hero trying to lend an extra hand." Sonic answered back.

Shadow continued, "But on the possibly they are correlated I don't think their on Eggman's side. If they were, they would have been sure to kill us last week."

"He has a point." said tails. "Unless they're trying to earn our trust just to stab us in the back."

"Which takes us from square A, back to square A." Sonic sighed.

An explosion came be heard near by followed by the sound of commotion. Sounding as terrified as possible.

"More badniks? Sonic complained. "Meeting adjoined. Let's go!"

The six of them got up and rushed through the streets. They all skid to a stop the location in question, was a three story daycare with badniks surrounded all around the building.

"We need to split up." Shadow said.

"Right." Sonic answered. "I'll start by getting the kids out."

"I'll help."

"So will I." Tails interjected.

"That leaves Amy, Rouge,and I to take out the badniks." Knuckles summed up. Deciding splitting up was the best option, the team nodded and split off. Tails set up his laptop, he directed Sonic and Shadow through the sonar radar. Sonic and shadow were bringing kids as fast as they possibly could. On the other side of the building, Rouge and knuckles were beating the badniks in the direction of Amy. Her hammer in hand she was batting them left and right. One unfortunately got damaged and spun towards the building, when it exploded it started a fire on the back wall of the building.

"Uh...Guys? Hurry it up will ya?!" Knuckles yelled.

After a moment of brief silence, Sonic stuck his head out of a freshly broken window out the third story.

"Would love to Knux...but there's still kids to find." He yelled back.

"Sonic...Please be careful." Amy yelled concerned for her blue hero.

Sonic and Shadow dashed outside with another armful of kids, from newborns to toddlers. As they sat them on the sidewalk far from the building, parents scrambled to gather their children and left. Most of them went to the hospital a couple blocks from here. When all the commotion cleared there was a pig mother waiting for her child. The building rocked and teetered growing more unstable, still ablaze.

"My child is still in there!" the mother shouted.

"I'll go in." Sonic said as he geared up for a dash.

"DON'T!" Tails and Shadow shouted at the same. Sonic skidded to a halt immediately.

"Sonic, the structure is highly unstable for any other applied weight," said Tails.

"How are we supposed t-"

"Sonic, if anybody goes in the baby will be put in greater danger."

"Someone help my baby!" The mother yelled again.

Sonic glanced overhead, believe it or not, the same stranger was flying overhead, getting closer and closer to the building. When she approached at one of the broken windows on the first story, she laid flat on the hoverboard making her weightless as she entered the building. With the building still swinging and swaying every one from the outside was nervous as hell. Dust flew from the building as the first floor collapsed on itself, with the main exit. Screams erupted from everywhere as the building is now shortened.

 _Whoever you are,_ Sonic thought. _I hope you and the kid are okay._

Forever it seemed like, People were starting to think that the stranger died, the baby along with it. Then hope struck, from the third story window you can see the shadow of the stranger moving back and forth. It was still unclear if the baby was okay. Suddenly you can hear the person smash through the window, a second before it exploded. The stranger was curled up on their knees, metal thud was heard when her hoverboard also hit the ground. When the stranger uncurled the baby pig teetered out with a smile on it's face. The mother came a claimed the child immediately and grabbed a carpool to the hospital. The fire department showed up taking care the rest of the fire. The stranger on the other hand was trying to crawl to their hoverboard failing at being undetected. Figuring this could be the last chance to ever catch the stranger Sonic called out to them.

"Hey! Wait! Where are you going?!"

The stranger hearing and acknowledging the invitation to stay, they still crawled towards the hoverboard.

"Please, stay." Tails called out after Sonic, for second attempt to talk to the stranger. The stranger continued the pursuit of going to their hoverboard.

"At least show us who you are." Shadow said concealing well that the curiosity isn't killing him. At that point the stranger stopped, the familiarity of his voice stopped them.

 _I guess I can't hide forever,_ they thought.

The stranger sighed, and turned to face towards them. After that they unzipped their large and concealing hoodie, and slowly lifted up the hood. It was a female hedgehog, who looked pretty exhausted as if she hasn't slept in a while. Her sin was a deep tan, maybe slightly darker than than a oak tree would be. She had dark black fur, and chocolate brown eyes. Her quills were naturally black but a dozen clusters out the bunch was dyed cobalt blue, or crimson red. She was wearing blood red lipstick and her ears had two silver medium hoop earrings on each side. Clothes wise was wearing the black and turquoise high tops she was wearing the other day. Black capris and a black tank top that had small stripes in this order red,orange, light green, turquoise, blue, purple, pink and, gray. Over that she had a black crop top jacket.

The six of them looked shocked. As none of them expected for the mystery stranger to be a girl, for one. Or anyone around the same age as them. She opened her mouth to speak.

"Ok.. Hi. My name is Shannon. Shannon the Hedgehog." She said still sitting on the ground.

"Hey Shannon, thanks for saving Tails the other day in the park."

"No problem," She replied. "Happy to be of assistance."

"Also our names a-"

"I already know you're names. You guys are all my city talks about." She pointed to each one of them.

"Rouge, Knuckles, Tails, Sonic, Amy, and… Shadow." Each one gave their own unique sign letting her know she was right. She moved her leg in position, it flared up in pain. She grimaced.

"Are you okay?" Knuckles asked.

Shannon's P.O.V.

"That jump out the window… sprained my knee." I said through my pain.

"We can her take back to my place, we can wrap her knees and make sure nothing else is broken bone wise." Sonic said then turned to face Tails.

"Come Tails, we'll make sure the place is ready." Then he faced by towards me. "We'll also take your hoverboard for you."

"Thanks," I said. "Appreciate it."

In front of me I can hear Knuckles shuffled back and forth. Then looked at Rouge then at the ground.

 _Knuckles. If you need to go somewhere then go,_ I thought

As if he could read my thoughts he says:

"Hey, Shadow… could you take her. I have something to go do."

"...Sure.." He said with almost no emotion.

"Thanks. Later." With that he passed me off into Shadow's care. I waved bye as Knuckles and Rouge took off in the same direction. It didn't take a lot of brains to figure out what they might do. I'm going to hope that it's just a date. I glanced around for a pink hedgehog who disappeared off I don't know when. I guess for some reason I'm a potential threat, or I assume so, she glared the hell out of me. Who would know in less than five minutes of getting to know someone, they could scare you for life.

"She probably went after Sonic." Shadow said following my gaze around the scenery and noticed who I was looking for. Shadow and I were the only the only ones left. Neither of us were very sociable, so this silence hung between us. Until Shadow broke it.

"Let's get you to Sonic's. Need any help?" Shadow said with no emotion or concern.

"No." I said exactly as he delivered it. I balanced myself with a tree that finished smoking. My balanced steadied… One step, Two steps, bad step, failed it. I fell back on the ground approximately 3 feet from where I was. I heard a snicker behind me, when I turned around, a solid stoned faced.

"Still need help?" he asked with a mix of sarcasm and smart-ass.

"No. I. Don't."

"Considering that you failed twice proves you wrong."

He walked over to me and offered me a hand up, reluctantly I accepted. He let me use his arm as a crutch.

"Could have done it myself." I huffed under my breath.

"Fine, then." He moved his arm from under mine's, falling was the result Shadow got. He proceeded to walk away. I struggled to get back up, I called his name. Nothing. I struggled some more, and called his name again. He kept walking.

"Shadow, please come back." Then my voice dropped to a whisper. "I guess I need your help." As blood rose to my face I laid down in the grass, arms folded across my chest. Exhausted, helpless, and highly embarrassed. After a couple moments Shadow leaned over my face blocking the sun with a smirk. I didn't have a reply, but I did stick my tongue out at him. He helped me back up and to spare for loss time, he picked me up in his arms, bridal style. He shifted my weight around which cause pain to shoot up my knee. I did a sharp inhale, I didn't think Shadow heard me but he did or he felt my body tighten up.

Shadow P.O.V.

I skated off at a very slow speed so the pressure wouldn't bother her knee. It was silent on the commute there. It gave me time to think, mostly on my opinion about Shannon. It formed questions like…

 _How she get here? What's her backstory?_

And the biggest one.

 ** _Can we trust her?_**

She did appear out of nowhere. My thoughts were interrupted by Shannon who shifted a quite bit. She fell asleep with her head loosely resting on my left shoulder. She did look exhausted now that i think back, she shifted again. She pressed her head harder against my chest. I felt like I should know her, like she's a long lost friend. Look around, I had another solid fifteen minutes before I arrived at Sonic's house.

At Sonic's place, I removed my hand quickly to knock on the door and replaced it before I could drop Shannon. After a moment Sonic opened the door.

"Shadow?" he said.

"I brought her, she's sleeping by the way."

Sonic opened the door fully, and ushered me to come in. I followed him into what supposed was his guest room. I assumed it was going to be some pigment of blue like the rest of his house, but instead it was a light shade of gray. I placed her on the white sheeted bed and Sonic pulled the comforter over her. I followed him back out the room, he shut the door softly as he exits.

"I guess we'll check on her tomorrow," he said. "Shadow… What took you so long?" For his genuinely curious nature I answered the question for his sake.

"Going at our normal speeds could have cause strain on her knee and make it worse. So I slowed it down."

With his question answered I started to go out the door and head home. Sonic called me one more time.

"If you don't mind or have anything else to do… Could you hold down the fort until I get back?" I thought about for a minute, he continued.

"I wanted to go to the store to pick up some more food just in case she was hungry."

"Uh...I-I guess."

 _Did I just stutter?!_

"Thanks Shadz. I really appreciate it."

He went to a room hear the back of his house, I heard another voice. I assumed it was Tails, being told that Shannon is asleep and we won't need him until tomorrow. I heard the back door open and leaving me basically alone. I sat on his couch and waited.


	5. Chapter Four: Here To Stay

_**(**_ _ ** **A/N: I know that this update is like so late compared to the other ones. I had writer's block also things like school and marching band got in the way. Any way here's chapter four, I'll update whenever I can.)****_

 **Chapter Four: Here To Stay**

Shannon's P.O.V.

I guess I fell asleep, because I woke up. I was in a gray room at what I assume was Sonic's place. I was covered with a blanket, it was thick but cozy. Curious of the time, I pulled my phone from out of my pocket.

 _*March 19, 2016* * 7:38pm* *89% battery life* *10 new notifications*_

I took a five hour nap. I was really that tired? I pulled the cover off of me and swung my legs over the side. A fiery pain went up my leg reminding me of what I went through.

 _***Flashback***_

I was looking through a TV in a store window, along with a lot of other people. It was on the news showing the badnik attack of last week. A sigh of relief left my lungs, there was no footage of me.

 **BREAKING NEWS!**

All of a sudden the TV flashed red and yellow. The camera panned to building on fire due to a badnik. You could see members of Team Sonic, smashing through the badniks quite well.

"My baby!" You hear as the camera panned over as fast as it could, to the mother shaking in fright.

 _I got to get over there_

I grabbed my hoverboard and flew to a location in the woods I knew quite well, in between Charleston and Mobius. I grabbed my hoodie but left my grenades, obviously not the best thing to use in this situation. I zipped up my hoodie and pulled the hood over as I took off as fast as the board could go.

When I arrived to the building it was teetering back and forth. The screams of the mother echoed, her baby was still in danger. So I flew to the first story window and laid on my board, now weightless. The heat consumed my body as I went in. I looked around on the first floor as best I could, considering most of it was soot. After deciding the baby wasn't here, I went up the through the hole burned in the roof to the second floor.

On the second floor not everything was burning yet but was catching on fire quickly. I heard crying, from the back of the floor. Cautiously I flew over, It was a little pig. He wasn't older than two, crying his heart out, trapped in heavy debris. I pried off the most I could from the pile, until there was these couple board to heavy for me to pull. I stepped back and examine the pile, It looked big enough for him to slip through.

"Come on baby," I called. He looked in my direction.

"Come on I'm going to get you out," the crying stopped, he tilted his head at me, quizzical. Like he didn't trust me, because…

 _He can't see me._

I pulled off the hood my face fully revealed.

"My name is Shannon…" A board from the third floor fell and broke through the second floor to the first. And if you can come out I'll get you to your mama." He looked at me and proceeded crawling out slowly. The slight shift in the weight of the baby crawling caused the first floor to collapse. I yelped at the sudden movement scared me, and the baby moved back into his hiding place.

 _Goddamn it!_

"Don't you want to see your mama. She's waiting for you outside. Shannon will take you to her," gesturing to myself. He crawled forwards again, faster this time. The second he was in reach, I grabbed him and went back to my hoverboard. The floor breaking up under me. I coughed again, I could feel the smoke entering my lungs, the baby coughed harder. I flew up to the third floor, there was a window directly across from me.

 _If flew fast enough I should be able to break the glass… maybe?_

I pulled the hood back over my head and touched the window. The building shook back and forth more violently as if it was trying to throw us the window. The baby clinging to my shoulder. It's double paned. I paced back and forth across the floor thinking quickly.

 _Any velocity under 50 miles per hour won't do it and I have to maintain a foot in the air in a crouching position. So I would first, protect the baby and second, fit through. 75 mph should give me a clean break through the window without the glass cutting us and if I land on my knees… but-_

The rafter from the second floor broke through the ground.

 _Okay no time to think._

I ran to my hoverboard and crouched fully protecting the baby.

 _3...2...1!_

I flew through the window and jumped off my board, sailing a couple feet before falling. I hit the ground, forgetting that I was a good 25 feet in the air. I hit the ground with crunch which later I would realize it was my knee. The baby kicked out from my embrace. The mother rushed forward yelling Oliver! Oliver! She took him and left.

 _Well nice getting to know you… Oliver,_ as I still sit on my knees.

When I moved my knee it hurt like hell. I looked for my hoverboard for an escape. Sonic called in my direction but knew if I got involved… I sighed and proceeded to my hoverboard now knowing the location. Tails tried on a second attempt to get me to stay. I had to keep going. Shadow called in my direction, I froze out of fear and joy?

 _This is a bad idea. I guess I can't hide forever._

I stayed and pulled of my hood showing the face of Shannon the Hedgehog.

***Present***

I sighed.

 _This was a bad idea and you knew it. Why the hell did you stay?!_

I flopped on the bed after beating myself up. After deciding it's too late to go back to how it was, I opened the door and limped out the hallway. The outside the door was the living room where I spotted Shadow on the couch, asleep. As I walked past him, he shivered.

 _Can ultimate lifeforms get cold?_

Neither the less I seen a blanket behind Sonic's loveseat and I spread it over him. I picked the remote and changed it from whatever shadow could have been watching. I flipped until I found cartoons, I found Looney Tunes. Sooner or eventually later I heard keys in the front door. It was most likely Sonic, I checked the time, 8:49pm. He opened the door and greeted me with a smile.

"Hey...Glad you're up."

I smiled back.

"In the meantime…" I started and then nodded my head in Shadow's direction. Sonic laughed softly, then lingered over Shadow body, his smiled dropped a little.

 _Could he like Shadow? Maybe? But… Possibly not? How about I think about this later?_

Sonic's smiled brighten back up a bit.

"He'll be up in a minute," he told me. "He never naps long. On the other hand…" he stuck his tongue out as he held up some small bags and boxes of food.

"...I brought food." he cheered. I grinned like an idiot, Sonic funny in his own goofy way. I didn't realize how much I wanted food, I was starving. He went behind the wall that the TV was against, making his way to the kitchen. I got up and limped behind him, when I was in the kitchen he turned around.

"I would have came back and got you." he said.

"I know, but you did too much for me already."

Sonic smiled at me again, and pulled a chair out for me.

"So what would you like," showed off the food like he was on game show.

"We have hot dogs, pizza, hamburgers-"

"How much food did you buy?"

"Two of each, didn't know what you would want."

"Pizza's fine."

"Drinks. We have Cherry, Orange, Pineapple, Lemon-Lime, Blue Raspberry, Grape, Strawberry, and Cola."

"Ooh.. the whole rainbow. Strawberry."

Footsteps were heard approaching the Shadow entered looking better rested.

"Hey Shadz. Care to stay for dinner, I know it just a bunch of junk food bu-"

Shadow simply nodded his head. Sonic made his own plate as Shadow silently insisted on do his himself. Sonic grabbed a seat on the left of me and handed me my plate. He mouthed over to me to pay attention. Looking in Shadow's general direction he mimicked his movements with silent voice overs, along the lines of:

 _I'm Shadow the ultimate lifeform, making a burger, but no cheese, too edgy for me._

 _I'm Shadow, drinking cola because it's dark, like my heart._

I had to laugh kinda because it was funny, mostly because Sonic's a dork. I'm glad Sonic joined in with me. Shadow turn around for second just to see us stare down at our plates. We broke back out in fits of laughter a few moments later, leaving a curious Shadow as he came to the table. He dared not to ask, I bet he assumed we were doing something childish. As he sat at the table something struck me, how was I going to get home. I mean I could take my board bit even that would take forever ever an hour or two tops and at this late at night.

Sonic's P.O.V

During dinner was the most boring I had, and you're talking to some who eats alone most days. It didn't last long we sat, we ate, we left. I threw away Shannon's plate as well as mine's. She limped back onto the loveseat and propped her leg up, while Shadow and I sat on opposite ends of the couch.

"So anyone up for a movie?" I suggested. The both of them shrugged, since neither of them opposed, I went upstairs. I scanned my bookshelf landing on a movie called Pet Sematary. I bought it, don't why I never watched it. I went to DVD player and started the movie. For a scary movie, I liked it a lot even though it storyline was quite sad. A guy who didn't let go of his family, so he brought them back to life and suffered the consequences. I had to admit some parts got me, even less for Shadow and Shannon. I've seen Shannon jump at a part or two, but she mostly giggled throughout the movie.

"How do you find this funny?" I asked her.

"The over the top lighting, the cheesy music, plus a pretty great plot line. It makes some of the best scary movies."

I shook my head at her and kept watching, before you know it was 11:10pm and the movie was over. Shannon got up using the couch as a crutch.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"...Home?"

"At this time of night?"

"...Yes?"

"We could at least walk you there. Where do you live?"

Shannon looked at the floor, still leaning on the couch. She bit for lip and tapped her fingers, looking for an answer.

"Do you not have a home?"

She winced hoping the question was not going to be asked.

"Technically, no."

She looked up and seen the reaction on my face, which was in shock. I assumed she had somewhere, or lived with family. Shadow's stone-still face, his ears perked up interest, also curious.

"What-, Where do you go exactly?

"Well...sometimes there's a hotel that let me sleep in a empty hotel room. Or there's a place my boss might let me sleep in because I don't know the city. And sometimes there's this beautiful part in the wood I like to go to."

The only question I could think of was...

"You don't know the city you were born in?"

"Yeah, um, about that, I wasn't born into the city. I kinda...found it. So I picked up a job to at least make a little bit money. That's how I ended up with my hoverboard."

She doesn't have a place. She wasn't born in Charleston, I assume. Who is Shannon?

"Well how about this?" I started. "What if ...you…. stay... here?"

"Really?" She said with confusion and shock.

"Really?" Shadow said with the same emotion.

"Really." I said. "I mean... if you want to, Shannon."

"Are you sure? I feel like I overstayed my welcome already and you did more than enough to help me and you guys don't really know me and I don't want to anymore of a burden, I don't deserve this and… an-and… um...

She scrambled to look for more reasons. I smiled through all this, at this point I believed that she couldn't be a villain. Her emotions seem real and honest, she's just an awkward teenager like the rest of us. Trying to do good for the better of the people.

"You are staying," I said friendly and firm. "I insist you do. You can have the guest room, nobody uses it anyways."

 **"** **Um…" She started, then she threw her hands in the air, almost losing her balance. "You know what, why the hell not?"**


	6. Chapter Five: Moving Day

_**(A/N: Hey guys. I'm going to try to do a chapter or two a week and a half. Second thing do you like Shannon? I'm just honestly curious. Also I'm sorry if this is a little shorter than the others.)**_

 **Chapter Five: Moving Day**

Shannon P.O.V.

I woke to a knock on the door, I rubbed my eyes.

"Come in." I said, groggy through my sleep, then I turned over on my side towards the door. Sonic poked his head in.

"You awake?"

"Yeah, yeah. I've been up for houuurrssss." As I tried to drift back to sleep, I heard him leave. The next thing I felt was a pillow upside my head. I yelped.

"Okay! Okay. I'm getting up. What are we even doing anyway?" I transitioned on the side of the bed, taking the living room couch pillow with me. The pillow, I chucked back in Sonic's direction, who caught the pillow swiftly.

"You're," he emphasized. "You are getting test done on your knee. So we can estimate how long it will take for it to heal. Tails will be here in a minute, I'll take you to his lab."

I stood as well as I could, Sonic walked over to my right side, letting me use his arm as a crutch. We walked out of the room and to the left, past the living room and behind the wall that holds the stairs to the upper rooms. Which is most likely Sonic's bedroom, bathroom, etc. I was upon a faint cream doors with past the doors looked...amazing. I'd never seen so much technology in one place, maybe except when I was with my dad. I was in awe, so much apparently, I didn't feel when Sonic was tugging me to get me to on the exam bed. I laid down on Tails' examination bed, it didn't take long for Tails to make an appearance. We exchanged hello's and he started by pulling the x ray screen over my knee, I didn't even notice that Sonic left the room.

Sonic P.O.V

I originally left to go grab some drinks for the Shannon and Tails, but as I walked into the living room to get to the kitchen I heard a knock at my door. When I opened the door I was more than shocked.

"Shadow!"

He was leaned up against this door framed looking down at the ground.

"Hey," he simply said. "May I come in?"

"U-Uh. sure of course." I let Shadow in. "Also Shadow if you don't mind me asking. Why are you here?"

"I...wanted to know about her knee."

"Oh. They're in his lab."

I walked over to the fridge I grabbed a strawberry soda, lemon lime, grape, and a cola.

 _Cold! Cold Cold Cold Cold Cold…_

I walked swiftly back to the door with four cola drinks freezing my chest as I entered. I gave the strawberry one to Shannon, lemon-lime to Tails, cola to Shadow, and the grape for myself. Tails still had the x ray over Shannon's knee, on the screen was several snapshots that he already took of it. Tails examined the screens for a minute and turned around.

"Your right knee broken, as I'm sure you could tell and also you're a small fracture on the tibia as well. I'll need a blood sample to determine examine an approximate healing window. Do you mind?"

"No." she answered. "Stab away."

Tails pulled out a very decently sized needle and walk over to Shannon who took off her jacket leaving her tank top. Tails stuck the needle a bit lower than Shannon's shoulder pulling an amount of blood that made me sorta queasy.

"Tails, am I at least well enough to go get my stuff by myself?"

She looked over at me, then back at Tails. Tails shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't see why not."

"Cool. I'll be back." She got up and prepared to limp to her hoverboard in the living room.

"But-"

"Thirty minutes tops. If I'm not back, then you can come find me. Deal?"

I rolled my eyes, and stuck my hand out for a handshake.

"Deal…"

She looked at Shadow and gave him a nod, in which he nodded back, exchanging hello's. She left the room, in which I followed her making sure she at least leaves okay. She went out the door and left, leaving me with my younger friend and my- Shadow. I went up the stairs and into my room to think.

Normal P.O.V.

It was exactly 23 minutes later when Shannon knocked on the door. She was greeted by Sonic who opened the door for her. Shannon had one suitcase it went up to her stomach.

"That's all you have?" Sonic said surprised. She took a quick glance at the suitcase.

"Yeah, I didn't have a lot of things."

Sonic grabbed the suitcase and placed it on her bed. He called Tales from across the house.

"Tails, how much longer until your done?"

It was a short while, then a voice was heard.

"About twenty more minutes."

Sonic looked at Shannon, silently asking her if she wants to unpack, in which she agreed. They walked across the living room to her new room, the feeling of uncertainty still hung on to Shannon.

"Are you sure with letting me stay here?" she asked again.

Sonic looked at her as he pulled a black drawer out the closet. He turned and smiled.

"How many more times are you going to ask that question?" He answered her question with a question.

"Until you kick me out."

She replied pulling a pair of pants from her suitcase and started folding them.

"Yes. I'm. Sure," he said stern but playful. "And I'm not going to kick you out," he continued.

Shannon walked over to the dresser and placed some of the clothes she started folding. Then she realized something.

"Where's Shadow?" she asked, curious.

"Shadow? I guess he must have left, when I went upstairs." sounding slightly deflated but tried to cover it up.

"Oh."

She walked back over to her dresser, grabbing more clothes out of it. Her black bra fell on the floor, Sonic picked it up. He examined it then teasingly said.

"You know these cups are a little big." he held the bra up in front of his own chest and grinned.

"Hey! Give that back."

"Have to catch me."

He dashed around the room 2-3 times. Even if her leg wasn't broken, she couldn't catch him. He paused in the back corner of the room and examined the bra again.

"I think the only person who got beat is Rouge. But you're a close second."

He waves the bra in front of Shannon, whose face was turning red.

"Sonic, when I get it back I'll will strangle you with it."

She limped over and did a lunge as best she could but once again the blue hero got her beat. She sat on the bed with a huff and her arms crossed. Sonic walked over and draped the bra over her ears. She did a quick false attack, startling him. Shannon smiled this the most fun she had in forever. A voice was heard bouncing around the house.

"I've finished examining the data." Tails said.

The two hedgehogs got up and went to the lab. When they entered the lab Tails was at the computer finishing up what was left of the Shadow. Speaking of the ebony hedgehog was still there. When Sonic asked him why he said no reason. Shannon sat back on the examination table, Tails told them what he discovered.

"Well," he started "Shannon's leg is definitely broken. But when I look at the blood sample I found something strange. Shannon's blood structure and white blood cell count are really similar to… Shadow's."

Sonic and Shadow both looked over to Shannon, who all of a sudden found the floor quite interesting. It was obvious that whatever questions they had to ask Shannon didn't want to answer. Sonic told them silently not to push it.

"I estimate that with your high concentration of white blood cells, you should be fine in about a month and a half. Other than that I didn't see anything else wrong or out of the ordinary. Just ice it and stay off of it as much as possible."

"Thanks Tails."

After the evaluation Tails was the first to leave the room. He said he an experiment he wanted to do at home. The front door was heard closing soon after. Silence lingered in the room still, awkward and growing uncomfortable. Shannon was the first to break it.

"Well, I'm... going to finish… unpacking."

She got off of the bed and went down the hallway, in a hurry to leave any oncoming conversations. Now there was only the two male hedgehogs in the room.

"Are you sure… we can trust her?"

Shadow spoke out of nowhere, the sudden noise made Sonic jump.

"I think so, she seems pretty sincere."

"And what if she isn't?"

"Innocent until proven guilty?"

He gave a weak smile and a slight shoulder shrug before they got up themselves and walking out of the room. Shadow continued his thought.

"And what if she is?"

"We'll figure that out when we get there. For let us let her heal."

Shannon's P.O.V.

It was maybe an hour after I left the room. I started folding whatever I didn't finish earlier, lost in thought about my past... and the present...and the future. I sat on the bed in slight frustration.

 _I'm am not sure of I can be here for another month or two. Or if they even want me here that long. I'm probably just an intrusion._

My thought were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was Sonic and in his hand was a silver tray it had a hamburger, a side of fries, a legendary strawberry soda, plus a bonus cookie.

"Hey." he said.

"Hey."

"Thought you might be hungry because it's like noon and I've notice you havent eaten yet."

"Thanks."

He sat the tray on the bed and then sat down next to me. I took a fry or two off of the plate, as I did Sonic looked at the pile of folded and unfolded clothes on the bed.

"Are you done yet?" he asked.

"Almost. I had more clothes than what I thought I did. Either that or I've been thinking way too long."

"What were you thinking about?"

"Life stuff."

"Like?"

"Mostly what to do with my life after my leg heal."

"Shadow and I was just talking about a while ago, before he left."

"And?"

"We didn't come up with a decision yet."

"Get there when we get there?"

"Exactly."

I nudged him slightly on his shoulder he sounds like he gave it the exact same amount of thought.

I asked him, "So what have you been doing?"

"Also thinking."

"May I ask about what?"

"Life stuff."

"Like…"

He shrugged it off, "Eh."

"No. No! Not "Eh." You asked me about my life problems, It's a fair deal."

He laughed at my reaction, glad I could. He continued the thought.

"...I don't know. I guess about the smaller things, that most people have."

"A normal life."

"Along those lines. Family, friends, dating, you know normal 16 year old things. Being an orphaned hero make me feel those things aren't possible."

"They are totally possible Sonic, it's just going to be a little harder to get there."

"Was that supposed to make me feel better?"

"Sorta. I'm a realist. I'm also extremely terrible at these things. Did it make you feel better?"

"Not really."

"A for effort?"

"Totally."

We talked for a little while longer, until the thing on my plate was a cookie. I broke it in half and passed the other half to Sonic, he accepted. I honestly don't know what will happen after this but it look like it won't be terrible. Sonic took the tray and left the room, I flopped back on the bed.

 ** _Maybe this wasn't a bad decision after all._**


	7. Chapter Six: Deja Vu?

(A/N: Ok guys a couple of things: You may have noticed that this update was on Wednesday instead of Thursday. It's because I have band camp on Thursdays and I tried to post it when I come home late at night. So new chapters are going to be Wednesday at about 8pm Central Standard Time. The other thing is that about two or three years ago I drew a picture of Shannon, before I even changed her name to Shannon. It's on my old and forgotten DeviantArt. It also has the updated version of Shannon I drew today. If you want to look it up my username is MusicPlayer5.

Okay. That's all hope you enjoy the story.)

(Update: I don't what the hell happned to the reason why the html codes were everywhere. Hope this is better, thanks for letting me know.)

Chapter Six: Deja Vu?

Shannon's P. O. V.

I woke up and pushed the cover off, then I rolled over and checked my phone.

*May 3, 2016* * 10:37am* *100% battery life* *25 new notifications*

I mustered some sort of energy pull myself out of bed. My knee feels almost 100% percent, I mean, it likes to lock up on me from time to time, but it mostly fine. I changed into my usual outfit and then headed out it to the living room and walked up to the front door.I yelled upstairs to my old buddy, old pal.

"Sonic!"

It was dead silence for a minute. Then you can see the blue figures of the hero of mobius make his way to the top of the stairs, rubbing his eyes.

"Yeah?" He asked me very reluctant to do anything, but at the moment I don't care.

"Do you remember about two weeks ago, when you said we could get my first breakfast chili dog?"

"Yeah?"

"Today's the day!"

Sonic lightly jogged down the stairs.

"Fine… As long as I get to race you."

"How bout no?"

"Why not?"

"You know damn well that you could lap my ass around the back. Also, I'm not running a race that I know I will lose."

I opened the front door and started walking the street, Sonic the door and followed along complaining.

"Ugh, why? Why are we walking?"

"I'm. I'm walking you can go on if you please."

I continued walking and I assume Sonic was going to walk with me, he didn't leave. I wanted to see more of Mobius, this is my first time in Mobius. Maybe I wanted to go into a store or two and just window shop. As we were walking though, the people of Mobius wanted to take a picture, talk to him, autographs, or tell him thank you for one time or another. They didn't mind me though, they probably think I'm just a girl that Sonic chose to hang out with for the day. It's not the first time he toured someone or a group of people around the city. I didn't mind, I expected this to happen. He is a hero and I am a mystery. To be fair though, at the moment, I am the biggest mystery going around. I read the theories and fanfiction. Some them were side-splitting hilarious and others were not to far off from the truth. It was about a block or two of constant stopping from admirers, when a store caught my eye. It was an art store, it looked like it wasn't trying hard to be noticed. The store was wedged in between to building and sign has a black background and dark red letters. "Mobius' Art Store" it read. I sped up and left Sonic to suffer own his own, I slipped inside.

It was nearly a half an hour before sonic entered the building and found the nearest bench he could, he looked exhausted as hell.

"Had fun?" I asked him, which earned me a deathly glare from my favorite blue boy. The store itself was quite empty, there about two or maybe three other people roaming around. As Sonic was resting, I resumed walking back in and out the isles. I finally decided to pick up some different sized drawing pads. There was a 16x20, 11x13, two 8x10's, 5x7 some small and adorable 3x3's. Along with that I grabbed soft and hard leaded pencils, color pencils, markers, sharpies, and pens. After feeling like I had enough art supplies headed to the direction of the counter, not before a bag caught my attention. I was a white cloth tote bag right with a white cloth star sewn on top of it. It barely fit the 16x20 in the two pocket bag. Finally finished, I went to the counter, the cashier rang it up quick, it was 83 rings. With my suplies in my bag Sonic and I exited the store. He lead to us to Dave's homemade chili dogs which was another three blocks from the store we were currently at. We made it there with little to no interruptions. Sonic held the door for me as we went in, arriving at the counter he placed his usual order easily and quick. I glacned at the menu up and down, being indecisive and… well me.

"I guess I'll just have a classic chili dog with fries."

Dave responded back immediately.

"And a drink?"

"Root beer."

Dave looked at both of us.

"Is that all?"

Sonic and looked at each other, we silently agreed that we were done. Dave rung up the order.

"That will be 28 rings," Dave tallied the order. I ring for my rings but Sonic beat me to it. The cash register made the most satisfying ring as dave officially closed the order and went to the next customer.

"Hey. I was going to pay," I told him, slightly annoyed.

"After you just spent 83 rings solely on art supplies."

"So?"

"Do you have to make everything so difficult?"

We walked to a table and sat at a table.

"Next time i'm paying," I finished.

"Whatever," he said, and with that the conversation came to an end. I took my first glance at the store, it was a fair amount of people here for 11:27am in the morning. It was a young couple slightly older than us, an elderly lady, and a small group of teenagers.

It wasn't long before Dave came to our table with our food. It smelled and looked absolutely delicious, I took a sip of the root beer with a fry trailing behind it. Out of the still silence, a constant beeping was heard from Sonic's wrist.

"Come on," he said.

"Right now?" I wined a little bit, hunger swinging my emotion slightly. "How often does this happen to you?"

He thought about it for a second, then broke out into a grin, followed by a happy sigh.

"All the time."


	8. Chapter Seven: Lights, Fight, Fame!

Chapter Seven: Lights, Fight, Fame!

Normal P. O. V.

As Sonic and Shannon ran out of Dave's, Shannon pressed a button on her remote. A quiet but high pitched buzzing sound emitted from the antenna, her hover came out of the distance a half a minute later. She jumped on and followed Sonic to the park when they arrived Knuckles and Rouge were solely knocking down the badniks on their own.

"Again?"

Shannon complained as she hung her bag on a empty tree branch. They slowly fought their way to the center of circle, smashing the robots from all sides. A minute later you could see a black streak down the street, that made a sudden stop at the outer edge of the circles. Shadow broke into a spin dash and made an opening to the center joining the action. Not so long after Tails, then Amy, made an appearance using their gadgets and hammer, completing the team. The battle lasted thirty-five minutes, Sonic and Shadow spinned dash jumping from robot to robot. Amy swung her iconic golden yellow hammer, making a softball out of the enemy. Tails had his dangerous gizmos and attack gadgets each with their own specific and unique function. Knuckles and his spiked gloves impaled them, ripping and cutting the wires straight out the machine. That leaves Rouge and Shannon who were full on combat, Shannon occasionally using her hoverboard as an optional fighting method, taking out a stray badnik or two. When the fighting sized the was an audience where the robots once stood. A teenage sheep not too much younger than the heroes themselves, spoke out above the crowd.

"There's she is, the mystery hero."

As the sea of flashing camera stunned the group of seven, Shannon realized she didn't have the hoodie on.

Shit! She thought.

Sonic spoke over the huge wave of commotion just enough to capture the attention of the others.

"My house in five."

They dashed off, at least six out of seven, the crowds circled too fast around her. She couldn't find a way out, she stared at her bag from a distance, helpless.

Meanwhile, at casa de Sonic, everyone else chose a spot in the living room, waiting on Shannon. They cracked the door just in case she needs to get in a moment's instance. Thinking of Shannon's situation the remembered when they were first recognized as public heroes. When it was just Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, the city couldn't give them enough praise. It toned down a lot since they first took up the roles, sometimes they do actually miss that praise.

A burst a wind came through the door as Shannon came and shut the door. There was probably nobody behind her for at a mile and half, but just to be sure. She slid down the door, physically exhausted from her 10 minutes in the spotlight. She must have went through quite a bit, she was breathing heavy, her quills are misplaced, and her jacket was no longer on her body.

"Aww…," Knuckles patronised the younger heroine. "There's our little superstar."

Too tired to say a word, even though she wanted too, she went to the only available option for sitting: the arm of the couch. Sonic, Tails, and Amy were to her immediate right on the long couch. Knuckles and Rouge were on her left on the loveseat. Shadow was on her far right in the chair. Sonic stood in front of the TV, his seat now filled by Shannon, he spoke.

"Today is Eggman's fifth attack in about a month, the attacks are usually not that close together. Also we still haven't figure out his plan of action, surprising, half the time he usually gloated the hell out it."

"I don't think Robotnik is behind it, at least not a hundred percent," Shannon said.

Knuckles asked her, "What makes you say that?"

"May I have a laptop?"

Tails went to the back of Sonic's house where the lab is, he came back moments later with a sleek black laptop. Shannon kindly accepted as she opened the laptop and typed in the search term, badniks Robotnik, several websites and images showed up. She peered through a couple images then clicked on one showing a bumblebee badnik. She zoomed in on the torso of the robot and presented her theory.

"When I lived in Charleston I observed Robotnik's attacks and a common theme I noticed is," She pointed to the torso of the robot. "His inventions usually has a small emblem on it."

You couldn't see too well because of the quality of the picture, but sure enough, you could make out a small symbol of Eggman's head. She opened a new tab on the computer.

"And, if hopefully my theory holds up," she said she typed in the search term Mobius News March 19. She found footage of the attack, it was hard to freeze frame it, but she captured a pretty decent frame. She zoomed in on a similar bumblebee badnik, the torso of the robot was blank.

"See? So what does that supposed to mean?"

Tails looked truly puzzled, but that didn't stop him from coming up with a suggestion.

"Those are definitely Eggman's plan. Maybe someone stole them to try to frame him?"

"Or what if Eggman did it so we wouldn't suspected him?" Rouge added on.

"I think we maybe should check Eggman's headquarters," Amy also suggested.

"That's not a bad idea, Amy. It wouldn't hurt to try," Sonic concluded deciding to put this plan into action. Meanwhile Shadow sat and listened to the six of them bounced ideas from one another. He spoke for the first time in this meeting.

"So what if we go into Eggman's headquarters to figure out his plan and we get captured?"

"Nothing we haven't escaped before," Sonic replied.

"If we don't figure out the plan?"

"We'll keep trying."

"Too many robots to handle?"

"Never a problem."

"And… If curiosity kills the cat?"

"It won't"

The rest of team just watched as their marital dispute becomes heated over the matter. Their eyes bounced back and forth from hedgehog to hedgehog, who are clearly somewhat annoyed with each other. Shadow ended the dispute with a few simple words, drenched with sarcasm.

"It's your call… captain."

Sonic turned his attention back towards the rest of them team. The room filled to the roof with tenison. When he didn't say anything Tails advanced the meeting. He presented a Shannon with a small black velvet box. She was truly surprised when she opened it.

"I get to have a communicator watch?!"

Sonic's irritation turned into happiness when he seen the shock in her face. He took a moment to say congratulations to Shannon.

"Why wouldn't you? You've fought three battles with us already."

Everyone watched Tails as he showed Shannon how the watch worked. It was five minutes later before Tails tutorial came to an end.

"... and that's how you send an all call. We usually use that to relay crimes and meetings."

"This is so cool," Shannon grinned as she put on the watch. The entire watch itself was a white touchscreen, the edges around the face was silver. On the back of the face was Shannon's name engraved in turquoise cursive. Then she finally looked up and realized everyone was staring at her. She the blood rise up to her face, she mumbled her way through a sentence.

"Anyways Sonic, continue."

"Whoever wants to help flesh out a plan will do it right after, anyone who dosen't can take a cool down. You guys deserve it. We'll meet back up in the morning."


	9. Chapter Eight: More or Less

**(A/N: Hey guys. I hope 2018 been good to you so far. My goal besides graduating is to get a better handle on this story. I hate the insanely long pause between chapters so I'm going to try to make them a little more frequent. Hope you guys enjoy reading though.**

 **:-P )**

 **Chapter Eight: More or Less**

Sonic's P. O. V.

My alarm clock beeped at 8:30am. I mustered up some strength to move my arm and sent out an all call.

 _*Group Meeting, 9am*_

Then I practically rolled out of bed and made my way to the shower, when I was with that the clock showed 8:46am. I proceeded to slip on my sock, gloves, and shoes. I opened the door and went downstairs, expecting to be the first person, but there she was Shannon laying across the longer couch. I walked over behind the couch.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," she said not moving from her current position, I leaned on the back of the couch, resting my chin on the top of it. I asked her another question.

"When did you get up?" She checked her watch.

"About 25 minutes ago, about 8:15ish."

I walked around to the side.

"Scoot," I said.

She shifted down her head now resting on the middle seat, her legs dangling over the side of the arm. She was watching cartoons, it was currently on Tom and Jerry. It made me realize how much i don't watch TV.

… _I should have threw it out, it could saved me money on the electric bills._

After that it felt like time just flown by. 8:52am, Shadow knocked on the door, not surprising, he is always here early for meetings. I let him in and he sat in the chair. 9:00am, Amy and Tails showed up right on time, as they always do. Shannon sat up on the third couch cushion which is the closest to Shadow. Tails sat on the other end while Amy sat next to Sonic. We ended up watching Tom and Jerry for about 15 more minutes. 9:15am, Rouge and Knuckles, always late. They are the reason why I set all meeting, thirty minutes before the actual time I want them set. The sat on the loveseat, and I turned off the TV, now that's the meeting is session now.

"The plan of action is we going to Eggman's lair at the Southwest point, where Tails will put a force field disabler thing. Then Tails we also put a wall laser cutter to, well... cut the wall. After that we'll make our way to his office and… wing it from there."

"Wing it from there?" Rouge questioned her friend.

"We concluded," Tails spoke. "At this point the possibilities could be essentially endless."

Everyone agreed that this was the best way to go forth, and they don't have any other plans. So they dashed out of the door, even Shannon, who took her hoverboard but decided against riding it. We dashed out of they city in a colorful streak, into the dark and brooding Eggman Empire.

Shannon P. O. V.

With all this as an empire why does he still to take over the world. I thought as we just sped past across the ocean. Everywhere is just a giant endless jungle. I'm sure if he paid enough people or built a couple extra robots to mow the whole damn continent, that's a considerable amount to be ruler over. Through her thought as they reached a giant metal dome in the shape of Eggman's head.

"Okay guys, let's go," Sonic said.

We circled around to the back and slightly more to the right. Tails stepped up and pulled out the small metal rod and laid it up against the building. You could see a faint Pink glow appear then disappear. He then touched the building, no alarms, no electrocution.

 _Phase One Completed, let's just hope the rest of this goes well._

Then Tails brought out somewhat of an glorified blowtorch and cut a rectangular doorway in. The lights were off down here, but looking up you could see a faint light, which I assumed was Eggman's office. We walked slowly and quietly, almost to the stairs.

 _*Click!*_

Something latched around my right ankle, stopping me from moving. I looked as best as I could in the dark, the rest of the team were caught too. Then my vision went black.

Normal P. O. V.

When Team Sonic came to they were chained up vertically on metallic stretchers. Followed by a cliche, cynical, slow clap, from Eggman.

"Sonic," he simply said.

" Isn't the slow clap is kinda played out?"

"At least I'm not the one chained up. And who's this?"

He stepped closer to Shannon, examining her facial features, only to quickly turn back around and return to his spot.

"You rag-tag team of rats are probably here to figure what I'm doing, right? I'll make it easy on you, I'm taking over Mobius.

"Again?"

"Well if you would stop destroying my inventions we wouldn't have to do this every other week. That's why this time my plan is foolproof."

"That doesn't work if you're the fool."

"That doesn't work if you're the fool" Eggman mocked. "This is plan is going to work bec-"

"Because it's not you're plan." Said a shadow like figure, a carbon copy of Shadow with minor differences; like his streaks are blue, the skin is paler, and he lacks a mouth.

"Mephiles." Shadow grimaced from under his breath.

"We meet again Shadow the Hedgehog... and Sonic," He looked in his direction.

"Lived to die another day have you? It will be a joy to kill you again." He look down either side of Sonic at the five other members. Similar to Eggman he stepped closer to Shannon and lifted her head which was hung lower than the others. He lifted her head to eye level and spoke.

"How's daddy's little failed experiment?"

She grit her teeth and violently jerked her head to the right, clearing her head of his touch. This remark that sparked curiosity in their teammate unspoken past. Their attention turn back to Mephiles who was Now bored of messing with teens he returned to his original position.

"Now I'm not going to spoil you with all of the details," he started. "Let's just say it's setting into action."

He spun a purple chaos Emerald on its apex, team Sonic eyes widen at the sight of it.

He took the Emerald and stuck it in a metal machine. A second later a purple beam shot out of it leaving a faint purple on the blue sky. The team of seven were staring up with a mix of concern and fear. Then he just simply walk away but not before saying one last thing.

"Do what you want to get rid of them Eggman."

Sonic's P. O. V.

And he left. He left us. Left us with Eggman. He stared us down with a evil glint showing through his glasses. We're in his disposal. He pulled a lever, it moved the slabs we were chained to. It laid us flat, like a bed. Soon after the roof opened up.

 _*Clink! Pssssshhhhhh!*_

You could hear a hydraulic air compressor and the cuffs unlink at the same time. It flung all of us in the air, we were so high up I could swear we could be in space. The last thing I heard was the collective of screams.

I woke up with dirt in my mouth and imprint of my face in the ground. Dazed, I managed to get up and at the least sit on my butt. I was the only one here, in the middle of a bunch of trees. I tapped to the watch's voice all call and tried to see who would answer.

"Anyone there?" I asked, and to my luck, someone did answer.

"Bruised, Battered, and Broken, ... but alive," Shannon answered, sounding like all the wind was punched out of her.

"I'm fine," Tail spoke.

"I'm alive, but I wouldn't consider falling into a tree fine," Amy Rose said.

"At least you didn't fall into a lake, I'm soaking wet!" I heard Knuckles complaints enter the group chat.

"Are you okay, Sonic?" Rouge asked, I glanced down at my body a spotted a couple cuts.

"Just a couple scratches and scrapes. Nothing too serious."

I paused, I haven't heard Shadow yet. Everyone else was conversing, either he's choosing not to say anything or…

"Any of you seen Shadow?" I asked in the open air, when the realization struck them they went silent, which was not reassuring. It was another minute or two of silence then Shadow, who sounded like he was getting out of a tangle of bushes, spoke.

"I'm fine."

It was only two words but it was enough for me to release the breath I was holding.

"If I came around and gathered us up one by one it should be easier than to follow moving dots in the middle of nowhere. So how about it?"

Everyone sorta murmured in agreement and hung up on the line.

 _Well the plan sorta worked..._

Sonic then looked around at this surroundings

 _more or less._

Opening the GPS feature on the watch it showed that the closest dot to me was pink, Amy... great.


	10. Chapter Nine: The Waiting Game

**Chapter Nine: The Waiting Game**

Normal P. O. V.

It was too long before he reached the pink hedgehog, when he arrived however, he didn't see her at all.

"Sonic!" You came!" Amy's voice rang clear as day, but she still wasn't in sight. Sonic opened his watch again to see her pink dot blinking over his blue dot.

 _Is sh- Is she above me?_

He looked up into the tree and surely there she was. She was still stuck in the tree hanging 20 feet above the ground.

"Hey Amy," Sonic said. "So I see your just… hanging around." Her relieved smiled turned into a frown.

"Just get me down, Sonic." She said with a rougher edge in her voice. Her irritation made sonic laugh however did scale his way up the tree. The branch that Amy stuck on was woven through the back of her dress. In an attempt to crawl on the branch it didn't both of their weight. To make a short story shorter: it snapped. They tumbled down the tree _almost_ hitting every branch. Amy somehow manage to land on her feet, as for the blue hero he tasted dirt for the second time today. Dazed, he checked his watch after amy helped him on to his feet. The next dot the watch showed was blinking turquoise...Shannon.

Shannon was lying flat on the ground right next to a rock, she looked like she was in pain.

"Are you okay?" Amy asked.

Her voice was separated by a small inconsistent wheeze.

"I...landed on… that rock."

Sonic helped her up, her shirt slightly rolled up in the process. It wasn't much but it was enough for Sonic to see the bruise forming on her tan skin.

The next two, Tails and Rouge, were completely unharmed because of their ability of flight. Rouge was checking her makeup while Tails wrote some calculations into the dirt. After them was Shadow, who was sitting up a tree. You could tell he did indeed landed in a bush as Sonic guessed, small leaves and stick poked through his quills. Last and possibly least, Knuckles, still soaking wet from the lake that had a purple tint as it reflected the supposed to be clear blue sky. The six of the caught Knuckles fishing a small fish out of his shoe. They (Shannon, Sonic, and Rouge) had to stifle their laughter. Wet and frustrated he joined the team as they went home.

Sonic's P.O. V.

Back at my place we basically collapsed on the couch, except for Tails who immediately went to his lab to track the remaining six Emeralds plus the master Emerald just in case. I honestly don't know just how Tails does it, keeping track of all of those numbers. An hour or so after he called us back to his lab, we were presented which codes, colors, and numbers on his giant computer screen. Tails was still staring intensely at the moving codes when he spoke.

"It seems like the Emeralds are spread out in between seven out of many dimensions."

"Alternate Realities? They really exist?"

"Yes. There's thousands upon thousands of alternate worlds, completely different from the last."

We all stared at the screen now, the colors corresponding to the eight Emeralds.

"Obviously the first emerald has already been tracked down on Mobius, also (A/N: non-canonically) known as Universe #33. The remaining six can be found safer if we spit into teams of twos. Unfortunately the next window we could enter is in a couple of weeks."

"Can Mephiles beat us to the other dimensions?" Rouge questioned.

"He can either steal one from Zonic or has Eggman replicate one. It would highly unlikely for him to warp with a chaos Emerald itself."

"How do we know he won't do that?" I asked.

"He won't..." Shadow started.

"...it's too risky." Shannon finished. "Collecting Emeralds while having at least one him… He probably thinks he might lose it, letting his plan backfire already."

"So… we're playing the waiting game," Rouge concluded.

"Exactly, I'll watch it and the moment we get the chance we'll go."

Understanding, the rough outline of the plan they started to break but Knuckles stopped.

"I can't let this go," he simply said and he asked a question that none of us would probably ever ask. "I have to ask for everyone's sake. Shannon?"

You could see the fear widened in her eyes, but she answered.

"Yes Knuckles?"

"When Mephiles spoke to you, what did he mean?"

She fell silent and glanced around. I think she was deciding to whether answer the question or blow it off. It's obvious that she didn't want to talk about her past it if she didn't have to, she always found a way to escape the situation if it came to it.

"Knuckles…" Rouge whispered while elbowing him in the side. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"No, no. I can't blame Knuckles for asking it, was bound to come up a eventually. The very short version is I wasn't born... I was created, similar to Shadow, on the ARK."

Out if the corner my eye, I've seen Shadow's ears twitch, perking up, as her backstory intertwined with his.

"Actually," she continued. "I was made to proceed Shadow. My ...creator believed that women were better caretakers. He also thought that he could implement more skills that Shadow didn't have… but I wasn't perfect. I was just a failed attempt that happened to live… and didn't want to part with me. So he taught me other skills like math, science, and self defense. Now, I'm here with you guys. That's the short of it." She finished her story with a shrug of her shoulder. It's obvious there was way more to the story and a lot of questions that wanted answers… but that's for another time.

"Is there a successful processor?" Shadow asked after the long still moment of silence.

"There was."

Everything that was needed to be said was there. Another moment of silence, Shannon stood still, in thought, it seemed like, then she gasped.

"Wildberry! Tails can you look Dr. Wildberry Alexandra the squirrel for me please?

"On it."

"Who's...Wildberry? Amy asked.

"A doctor who used to frequent the ship." Shadow answered.

"And my best friend," Shannon continued. "At the time she was twenty-one, now, she most likely pushing her seventies. I can't believe I forgot about her for so long."

"Found her," Tails broke through the conversation. I focused my glance on Shannon it didn't show through much but you could hope in her eyes.

"Could you find an address?"

"Yes I did?"

"Can you write it down please? I'm going."

"Wait. Right now?" I asked.  
"Yeah. It's only 1pm."

"But-" I started. I don't want her to end up being disappointed, if she really is the last part to her past and she's not alive. She… she could become very distant and reserved like Shadow, way more than what she already is. She's is a great addition to the team, also, she's an amazing friend

"Sonic." She said cutting me off and looking dead into my eyes. "I'm going. Not be morbid but, _if_ she is alive we are not sure how much time she have left…" She paused looking at the picture that pulled up on the screen it was of twenty-one year old Wildberry. It was a student picture then next to that the school she went on to teach at.

"I need to see her… I need to know, if it makes you feel better your welcome to come with."

 **She took the strip off paper out of Tails hand and practically dashed out the door with everyone following behind her.**


	11. Chapter Ten: An Old Friend

**Chapter Ten: An _Old_ Friend**

Wildberry's house was a tall and beautiful oak tree with acorns hanging off of it. Shannon, who was at the front of the group, hesitated to knock on the door. An elderly squirrel opened the door, her skin was a light color textred with wrinkles. And her fur which at some point was a stunning apricot orange is has now faded to a dull orange. She still had the thick black glasses Shannon remembered her having.

"Shannon?" She asked. "Is that you?"

"Yeah. It's me."

"You escaped the ARK and G.U.N…. I was so worried," She hugged her then paused. "You still look as young as you did when I last seen you. How?"

"Cryogenically frozen in a escape pod… for a little over 50 years."

"And Prof.-"

"Dead."

"And S-"

"and...she's also dead." Her head tilted to the side and gave at small eye roll at the situation. Everyone else just stood listening.

"I'm sorry Shannon."

"ts okay, I'm fine...really. Anyway that's enough about me. What's been up with you?"

"Come inside and I'll tell you. I don't want you just standing out there."

Wildberry invited everyone inside and excused herself to some tea the was boiling on the stove. Everyone except Shannon sat on the two couches she had. Shannon had instead walked around and looked at the pictures on the wall. There was one of Wildberry in her classroom about 30 years ago. Another one was of Wildberry in her high school cap and gown. The last one Shannon looked at was of Wildberry, her husband, her three children, and what she assumed are her five grandchildren.

"Finally married Chester did you 'Berry?" Shannon's raised her voice loud enough so it got across to Wildberry. Wildberry entered the room with a tea cup in hand and a photo album, she slowly sat on her rocking chair.

"Why did you say it like that?...But yes I did, he's at work now."

"Nothing. I just remember you talking about him all the time. Im happy for you though."

Shannon went to go stand behind her and received the album.

Shannon smiled but something about it struck Sonic, her smile look slightly forced. She quickly directed her focus on the photo album, flipping through it semi-monotonously. Eventually she found a picture of her and Wildberry smiling like idiots, Shannon forgot what they were doing before the picture, but she found herself almost in tears.

"Can you still do the thing? With the fire?" Shannon asked.

Wildberry held her hand out a small barely visible flame on her hand. Everyone else in the room was entranced, even though it wasn't their first time seeing the power of pyrokinesis.

"How?" Tails asked, being the first person other than Shannon to engage a conversation.

"I was a test subject group to a highly experimental experiment, and this a side effect to an unsuccessful experiment. I could have transferred the power to another person but, I didn't want it to end up in the wrong hands. I have seen the transfer done before from people who didn't want to be a target, so they just gave it up." She closed her hand and extinguished the flame.

"Funny," Shannon said. "I thought you would have passed it on to one of your kids by now."

"I didn't think they could handle it. But actually I have been thinking about passing it on… to you."

"What?"

"I always thought about giving it to you, and when I didn't see your name on the ARK. I was hoping that you would be alive and that I would see you again… and now that you're here…"

"Wildberry. I can't take your power."

"Oh. But you have to…"

"Don't say it."

"It's my dying wish."

Shannon hesitated and lightly tapped her foot in irritation, debating with herself. After a minute or two she hung her head in defeat.

"Damn it Wildberry!" She threw her hands in her hands in air.

"Fine," she continued. "Go ahead."

Shannon walked around to the front of Wildberry, slightly pissed. Wildberry gave the rest of the group instruction.

"Can two of you stand her on sides to brace her?" She then directed her attention back to Shannon.

"This is going to be painful, and you will mostly likely black out during the process. So this is goodbye, at least for now."

"But what about controlling it?" Shannon asked, she was scared but lack to show it.

"You are smart. I'm sure you'll figure it out."

"...Great."

Sonic grabbed her right arm and Shadow on her left. Wildberry placed her palm the middle of her forehead, that of which glowed. Shannon kept her eyes closed, she felt like the inside of her body was on dying, maybe she was. She tried to kick her way out but Sonic and Shadow held on to her strong. Wildberry's palm went from red to blue to black and Shannon fanited. Now unconscious, she was now in Shadow's arms.

"How long will she be out?" Sonic asked.

"I don't know, but it shouldn't be longer than a day. You guys should probably take her home and lay her down on something."

They nodded in agreement and they were on there way out of the door.

"Sonic," Wildberry called back. Sonic stopped and so did Shadow being right behind Sonic. The rest of the team was already on their way home.

"My power was the last thing keeping me alive. I'll probably pass on an hour or two after this. Can you let her know? It's up to you when."

"Of course," Sonic answered and her took a small glanced at Shannon, now concerned for his friend and her emotions.

"Now you guys can go," She ushered them out and shut the door. Also, closing out the last Shannon's childhood.


	12. Chapter 11: A Beginning of an Adventure

(A/N: Hope you enjoy Chapter Eleven, though it is an transition chapter. I'm really excited to post Chapter Twelve, hopefully soon, I'm proud of what I have so far. Catch you then.)

 **Chapter Eleven: A Beginning of an Adventure**

Shannon's P. O. V.

I woke up in a gray room, my room, covered with a blanket. I pulled my phone out of my pocket.

 _*May 4, 2018 5:43pm*_

I swung my legs over the side, then looked around.

 _Woah, Deja Vu._

I didn't feel different at all. I took another glance at my room, now littered with my drawings all over the walls. Everytime I look at my room I remember every single time i added a drawing. Black, Gray, and Turquoise furniture was now everywhere. Anyways, that's besides the point. I walked into the living room cutting a conversation short between my two favorite hedgehogs. Sonic was laying down on the loveseat and all the way across the living was Shadow on the recliner.

"Hey," Sonic acknowledged me.

"...Hi Shadow."

Shadow swiftly made eye contact and made the smallest smile possible. I looked back over to sonic to see he was looking for anything different.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Rested."

"That's not what I mean."

"Yeah. I know. I feel no difference between now and… How long was I out?"

He checked his watch.

"About 3 hours."

"Ughhh. I'm starving." I made my way towards the door, the daylight shone in my eyes.

"Where are you going?"

"To the all you can eat pizza place a couple blocks down."

"Pizza?"

"Yes," slowing down her words to make Sonic seem stupid. "A food that is not chili dogs. Pizzas are flat, round, with cheese and other toppings."

"To think I almost missed you in those 3 hours."

"Yeah, yeah. You coming?"

He thought for a moment.

"Nah, you go ahead. Catch you later?"

She nodded. "Later."

Sonic's P. O. V.

We watched her go out the door.

"So when are you going to tell her?" Shadow asked.

"...When the time is right."

"You need to tell her… soon."

"...I know…"

Silence lingered, but it wasn't awkward, it's usually that way. A machine from Tails' Lab, broke through the silence, beeping clearly from the back of the house. I waited for it to stop, but if kept going, i figured it must be something important. I called Tails,the watch rang for a minute.

"Sonic?"

"Hey buddy. Um.. you have a machine beeping back here… is that important?"

"What machine is it?"

I gave him a blank look, he should know that i have no idea whatsoever could be making that noise. It would be a bomb, for all I know."

"...Right," he said. "I'll be there in a second."

When he did reach the door, he flown himself immediately to the lab, not greeting either of us. Curious though, we followed him back to the lab. Tails was at his computer clicking in and out several folders, each of them bringing up their own code. When he stopped he looked dead into my eyes.

"We need to call a team meeting," he said. "Now."

Shannon's P. O. V.

 _*Emergency Team Meeting*_

 _What could this possibly be about?_ I thought. I was sitting a table pushing around whatever food I had left.

 _Well let's go._

I left a tip for the waiter then rushed out the door.

I wasn't the last one to arrive but I definitely wasn't the first. I assumed that Shadow never left and Amy was the first to get here. She was sitting in a chair across the room from Sonic, occasionally taking glances. Not so long after, Rouge and Knuckles showed up, thinking that their keeping the really obvious… obvious.

"I'm glad you guys came at a short notice," Sonic greeted us. "Tails has something to say about our next advancement on our mission."

"To keep it blunt," Tails picked up right where Sonic left it. "The next time window opened up so we have to go through in the next 24 hours. Although time windows while in the alternate universes might be hard to track down. So i would like for everyone to stay here, so I can modify our watches to understand the alternate worlds. Then immediately after we need to proceed the mission."

One by one, Tails took our watches and can I say that arm felt uncomfortably bare, even with my gloves on. The small break gave the opportunity for us to pair up. Rouge chose Knuckles, Amy chose Tails, and that left Sonic and Shadow.

"Okay. Teams… are… Shannon." Sonic started and then slowed his words at the realization that I'm left. I wasn't surprised, the last time they paired up I was still healing over. What I was surprised about was the teams were vastly different then usual. Normally it was Rouge and Shadow, Amy and Knuckles, and Tails and Sonic.

"Guess we're still not used to having a seventh member," he stated. "You can group with us."

"Cool," I replied, then I paused. "Amy… you didn't pick Sonic?"

She smiled and rolled her eyes like the answer was plainly there.

"Well, I can't save the world if I'm distracted."

"Fair enough."

Several moments later Tails reproduced our watches, physically, nothing looked different.

"I have the coordinates set for each alternate universe, but not so sure of the name and/or time period."

"That's okay, Tails," Amy comforted.

"Yeah. Adventures are full of the unknown anyway," Sonic's optimism shined through.

Tails pressed a few more buttons, then a space rift tore open in front of us, it glowed an almost blinding white. I never seen anything like it before, it was entrancing. But to physically enter the portal, we all hesitated to go through.

"Rock, Paper, Scissors?" Knuckles forced a chuckle through. I honestly almost considered it, then I realized we have to do this at some point. I threw my hands in the air and mumbled under my breath.

"Fuck it, let's go." I dashed towards the portal unsure of where it will go.

Sonic's P. O. V.

Did she really just do that? I seen her body emerge in to the portal and disappear completely. I was proud and jealous and the same time. I'm the team leader, and I'm too scared to walk towards a circle. Everyone just stared at the portal.

"Come on guys," My voice broke the silence again. "We have a world to save."

And just like Shannon, I too ran into the circle.


	13. Chapter Twelve: Ahoy!

Chapter Twelve: Ahoy!

Rouge's P. O. V.

I woke up feeling nauseous. I felt a constant rocking slowly swinging everything back and forth. Looking around, I discovered I was on a boat. I also seen two other people in the room I recognized, Amy and Shannon. They were each on their own beds dressed in outfits. Shannon was in a white nurse's outfit with a hat that matched. Amy was wearing a chef's dress, her hat though was sitting on the counter. Then I looked down at myself, I was wearing a maid's outfit with a black rose clip in my fur. I also felt like had twice the memories, maybe I did. Focusing I could remember some memories of the Rouge from this universe. The wave of nausea hit me again, I walked as steady as I could on the rocking ship.

"Hey Rouge. Where are you going?" Shannon asked her eyes filled with curiosity.

"I was… going to see what needed to be cleaned."

"Did you forget? Your cleaning schedule is right there on the wall," Amy pointed in the direction of the old scroll posted on the wall.

"Oh...right. The sea sickness must be getting to me," I mumbled out hoping it was an acceptable answer.

"I completely understand, it doesn't matter how long you been on the sea, somedays it still gets you," Shannon stated completely buying my excuse. I nodded and made my way towards the scroll, the schedule, with the messy handwriting I recognized as Sonic's. In summary, I have to start cleaning from the bottom of the ship and make my way towards the top.

*2 hours later*

Can't say I was stoked about cleaning… everything, but I got about half of the list done. Knuckles periodically tried to beep me through the watch, which I ignored, the emerald is our top priority. Soon after, as on schedule it was time for lunch severed by Chef Amy, it was a very home cooked pickled salmon. Glancing around the room I met eyes with a red furred echidna, his eyes filled with relief. We sat side by side at the farthest table possible.

"Where the hell were you Rouge? And why didn't you answer any of my texts?" He whispered in a stern voice.

"Cleaning, and not blowing our cover."

"Nobody was with you."

"So…?"

"I didn't want to take that risk… never mind that," I whispered back. "Did you find anything out?"

"No, it's kinda difficult when you're stuck in the crow's nest," his voice coated with sarcasm. I rolled my eyes at him.

"Well," he raised his voice slightly, now defensive, "You didn't find anything either."

"We've only been here for a couple of hours, there's still time."

I stole a glance at my watch making sure it didn't attract anymore attention then it might have already. It took a second for the watch to adjust, but soon locked on a blinking cyan light.

"The emerald is miles away from here and that's assuming if it's even on land. We're lucky that the ship is even pointing in the right direction."

He paused in thought, "Maybe there's a reason we are going in that direction, like its possibly buried with some treasure."

It wasn't a bad thought, "You think they already know?"

"Sorta, I think they know where the treasure is, but I don't think they know that the emerald is in the treasure. At least that's what I gathered from the map."

Silence stood between the both of us, furious, I smacked his arm.

"You've seen the map… the fucking map."

He hid a smirk pretty well under his neutral expression.

I simply said, "I hate you."

He kissed my cheek, "I bet you wished you did."

I couldn't help but to give a small smile back. "Take me to the map, Knucklehead."


	14. Chapter Thirteen: We're All Mad Here

**Chapter Thirteen: We're All Mad Here**

Amy's P. O. V.

I woke up under a tree near a riverbank with a book in my hand, Pippi Longstocking, it appeared to be. The book itself looked fairly new, the cover etched in gold. Myself, on the other hand, acquired a mind-numbing headache. After the world stopped spinning, I soon noticed I'm wearing black Mary Jane's with white stockings. Accompanied with a cotton light blue dress and white silk apron tied around me. I felt through my quills to discover a black headband. I got up a slowly walked to the river, I noticed a striking resemblance between me and a storybook character.

 _Am I Alice? Like,_ " _Alice in Wonderland",_ _Alice?_

I did a small twirl, the dress followed smoothly along.

 _Maybe this won't be too bad._

A small reflection appeared next to mine, it was a small white rabbit. He mumbled to himself while staring at a gold pocket watch, something about being late. He started to bounce away me, I felt like something was pulling me towards it. My legs were moving but I didn't move them.

 _I'm going to have to follow this story until the end, aren't I? ...Wait. Where's Tails?_

I tried to call out for Tails but my voice was mute, silently I followed.

We stopped at a rabbit hole, go figure, the rabbit jump down without missing a heartbeat. I closed my eyes and plummeted, possibly to my death.

*5 minutes pass*

Falling, especially for this long, makes you think. Like how even though it's gravity pulling you down, you feel weightless. All around me was furniture, rocking chairs, dishes, and even an entire bookshelf. I looked up, you couldn't see any light from the top of the hole anymore. I looked down, no light, no indication that I would reach the bottom soon.

*Another 5 Minutes pass*

 _Finally. Finally!_

I see the a tiny flicker of candlelight. It softly illuminated the dark wooden floor. As I approached closer to the light I saw more and more detail. Then I started to panic, I grabbed something, anything, everything, to slow down my speed. I'm glad to say that it worked, to a degree. I slammed into the ground on my back, aching pain all over. I rolled from side to side dodging whatever furniture fell with me.

"In the movies, the landing looked a little more… graceful."

Unbalanced and disoriented, I made out the objects. In front of me was a door, it about half my my height and painted blue. I also see a wooden table, it had a red box with a yellow bow around it. Carefully, I walked over to it and undid the ribbon. The box was divided into three sections. One section was about half the box it had small glass bottles filled with liquids of varying colors. The next section was a fourth of a box and had blue frosted cookies. It had "Eat Me" written on it. And the last section also had cookies, but with purple frosting also labeled "Eat Me."

I put the box of cookies and bottles in my pocket for use later. Then, I drank one of the bottles, it had a taste similar to orange soda. I felt the room around me grow, … wait, no actually I was shrinking. The feeling of shrinking was indescribable, nothing felt like it was changing, yet everything was. The table was thousands of feet above me and the door that was half my height was now quadruple it. I walked to door and turned the tiny door handle, the world behind it was so colorful and wacky. I found myself officially in Wonderland.


	15. Chapter Fourteen: A Cold Start

**Chapter Fourteen: A Cold Start**

Shannon P. O. V.

 _Ow!_

I landed face first out if the portal, which was noticeably 6 inches off the ground.

 _Yeah...that could have went way better._

I heard a small yell out the portal which gradually grew louder. I had just enough time to roll to the side.

"Wooaah!!!" my good friend Sonic face planted next to me.

"Welcome to the club," I said to him now looking at him. He smiled, mostly out of relief, I bet. Then, Sonic instinctively rolled the side farther away from me, assuming Shadow wasn't too far behind him. And boy, his instinct was not wrong, about another 5 seconds later Shadow came out the portal, landed straight on his feet.

 _Of course he lands on his feet. How come I can't look that badass?_

To my surprise though, Shadow walked over Sonic and helped him up by grabbing his forearm.

"Thanks Shadz," Sonic said, brushing dirt out of his fur and quills.

Shadow, actually making eye contact for once, returned the gratitude giving his signature nod. He walked over to me and helped he me up in a similar way. We started walking through Moebius in no particular direction, waiting for any of our watches to lock on the Emerald. As we were watching I watched the civilians. They all everybody past walked us staring at the ground or in their own conversation. It was… weird, everything looked the same but the people felt dull and the initial atmosphere was cold and dark. ...Everything just felt gray.

Sonic watch beeped, he glanced at a purple dot flashing extremely far away from here. It looked like its a completely different zone.

"This walk is going to be long even at top speed, it's in Ice Mountain Zone. I guess this is going to be a cool adventure, pun entirely intended."

"This is going to be a long adventure," I said walking the completely opposite direction following the dot on my watch. Shadow walked next to me on right, both of us trying to get as far away from Sonic as we possibly could.

"Hey wait up! Am I on thin ice now? I hope I don't fall farther down this icy slope."

Hoping I could buy some time from Sonic's non-stop puns, as soon as it was clear I ran. Shadow picked up his speed to match mine's, even though he could easily surpass it. However, it was enough to get away from Sonic and catch him by surprize. Obviously though, Sonic caught back up rather quickly, we started running towards the other side of the large city. On our way out something caught the corner my eye, something green. I think it might have been another hedgehog, but since I couldn't tell, I pushed it out of my mind.

10 minutes later*

It wasn't a long run to reach the outskirts of the city, immediately outside the city was a forest similar to the one next to Charleston. The difference though, there wasn't a Charleston on the other side, it was "desert". Complete with sand, cacti, and little ponds of water… but it wasn't hot. It was the exact same temperature. I looked at Shadow and Sonic, who were both on my right, they didn't look bothered by this at all. I think they come here way too often.

"Hey. Look up at the sky," Sonic pointed out, after looking at it I'm surprised we didn't see it earlier, unless it wasnt there earlier. The sky has the same purple tint like it does on Mobius.

"What Mephiles and Eggman are doing is not going to affect just Mobius but all universes," Shadow said looking for minor details in the sky. Sonic pressed the communication button, trying to reach the rest of team, but all he got back was static.

"What? You didn't pay for interdimensional minutes?" I asked.

"Hilarious," he shot back.

"Better than your puns."

"We need to keep moving," Shadow cut through cutting our conversation short. I told Sonic, "Lead the way."


	16. Chapter Fifteen: Modern Day Pirates

Rouge's P. O. V.

Getting to the Captain's office was a lot easier than it should have been. Everyone that should be watching the door was mostly downstairs. The door was stained a deep blue with the word Captain carved into it. I tried the doorknob; it jiggled as it refused to turn.

"Locked, like it should be," I observed. "Sonic mostly likely has the key with him."'

"Yes, but remember he can be forgetful at times. I'm willing to bet he has a spare around here."

Looking around the immediate space, knocking on the walls, moving paintings, listening to the floorboards. We keep looking until I saw something glint in the dirt of a potted fern, I walked over for a closer look. The metallic shine was under a loose leaf; it reached into the soil a pulled out the key. This one was much smaller than the one he would typically have.

"That was lucky," I said to myself.

Knuckles walked behind to see what I was talking about. He smiled.

"You truly have the eyes of a jewel hunter."

Key in hand, we walked over to the door, getting ready to unlock it, until…

"What are the two of you doing?"

We jumped to see Shadow, he eyes practically glowing in the light. I held the key tight in my closed fist.

Knuckles tried to put together, "We were, umm…"

He tried to find a viable excuse but to no success. So I decided to see if I could think of one.

"The lookout here was trying to help me find the Captain. I wanted to see if it was a good time to clean his room. We thought he would be in the room, is he not?"

Shadow's eyes narrow slightly at us, I could feel my heartbeat in my throat, waiting to see if he would buy my excuse.

"...No," he answered. "The Captain is eating lunch in the cafeteria with the first mate. I send a message his way before I resume my duties."

"Please? That would be delightful."

Shadow walked away; we waited until he went upstairs before we unlocked the door. Sonic's room is definitely bigger than at least the one the women shared. We started immediately looking through everything before Sonic can get back. It ended when Knuckles lifted up Sonic's mattress.

"Found it!" He grabbed the brown, worn piece of paper and laid on top of the bedspread. I pulled out my phone.

"Perfect."

I took a picture of the map and Knuckles placed back under the mattress. I glanced around; hopefully, nothing is out of place. I was about to grab the front door, but I passed, hearing a near conversation.

"Occurring to my calculations Captain we are ahead of schedule on the trip."

"Excellent. And the status of the other ships?"

"Captain Eggman has been silent since we departed. His whereabouts are unknown at the moment our Chao is at sea trying to spot it."

Tails and Sonic were nearing towards the door. I quickly scanned the room and spotted the window. I flew out and hovered outside the ship, helping Knuckles leave as well. We shut the window as best we could and flew up to the crows nest. We sat down breathing heavily, slowing our heart rate to normal.

"Hopefully, we don't have to do that again." Knuckles breathed through his words.

"Hopefully, we shouldn't have to stay here much longer. This dimension is very boring."

I took my phone back out to look at the map; there were a couple of blobs of surrounding islands. I continued, "Who would want to spend their lives on the water hoping that treasure might be there?"

Knuckles just laughed and kept laughing until he saw the confusion on my face.

"What are you laughing at?"

"The irony. Rouge, babe. A treasure hunter or jewel thief or whatever you call it is literally a modern day pirate, you just have technology and makeup instead of chores and water. We are planning to take the Emerald right now; we are pirates."

Then, he continued to laugh at me; I felt myself blushing. I decided to focus back on the map, One of the islands were marked, stereotypically, with a red X. It had a bright red line leading from it to what I assumed to be pirate Mobius. I loaded that course on my watch. Weird, we aren't on that course.

"We aren't on the course with the red line," I told Knuckles and looked at the map again. Squinting, there was a fainter black line on the map, taking a longer way to get to the treasure, it lined up perfectly with that course.

"Why do you think he isn't taking the direct path?" Knuckles asked.

"Maybe it has something to do with Eggman? I think Sonic figured that Eggman would take the shorter route and wait for him so he could finally capture Sonic."

"I should've guessed. Like Eggman would ever take something and leave. How long till we get there?"

"Almost three days."

"Three days?! I guess we'll have to wait it out and focus on not blowing our cover."

"What about a plan?" I asked.

"History shows, they'll never go as planned. Some bullshit always messes it up. Just grab the Emerald and portal back to our dimension."

I rolled my eyes, even though he wasn't wrong, I put my phone back up in my pocket.

"See you later Knuckles."

He leaned forward and kissed me.

"Later."

I flew down back to the deck of the ship and walked back below deck ready to do the next round of chores.

Shadow's P. O. V.

I watched her land on the deck and head below deck.

 _I knew there was something off about them; I need to alert the Captain immediately. They're spies._


End file.
